MN House GOP to Increase Gov’t by 8%

Republicans won a majority in the Minnesota House and Senate last November and were facing an excellent opportunity to finally stop the growth of government and give money back to taxpayers. Unfortunately, we’ve been let down by Republican leadership who are determined to grow government and keep our tax money.

According to the state economist, there was a projected $1.65 Billion surplus of money that was overcharged to taxpayers. Governor Dayton only wanted to give $300 Million of that money back. Last week, Senate Republicans revealed they wanted to give only $900 Million back. And this morning House Republicans announced their plan to give $1.35 Billion of it back. In other words, no party at the Capitol is willing to return all of the surplus back to the people.

Even worse, Action 4 Liberty showed back in January that if Republicans simply froze spending at current levels, we could pass a massive $5 Billion tax cut that would include structural changes to tax rates, eliminating estate taxes and social security taxes and reducing business property taxes.

All three parties at the Capitol (Governor, Senate GOP, House GOP) want to grow government. Governor Dayton wants to grow it by 11%; Senate Republicans want government to grow by 9%; and House Republicans seek 8% growth.

Imagine that state spending is represented by a football field. On one end of the field is the red end zone that represents the most spending that could occur in the upcoming biennium (about $46 Billiion). On the other side of the field, is a freeze in state spending at about $42 Billion. With the historically high reserves account, freezing spending would enable legislators to give back $5 Billion in tax relief, where the red end zone would leave no money to give back to taxpayers.

At this time, all three parties of budget negotiations are starting within field goal range of the “Big Gov’t” end zone. Which likely means that the final deal in May for the upcoming biennium budget will be about a 10% increase to spending and only $600 Million in tax relief. Republicans have started negotiating with the most liberal governor in Minnesota history from a position of weakness. And the taxpayers are the ones that get hurt the most.

On top of all of this, we are likely to see a $1.6 Billion Bonding bill pass in May. A bonding bill = debt. The current Senate bonding bill is full of pork and wasteful spending projects that you as a taxpayer will have to pay for over a couple decades.